The paper, as usual

2003-04-19 / 2:22 p.m.

Taking a very necessary break from writing The Paper. If you don't know which paper I'm talking about by now, then you havn't been reading my entries very attentively. :) I'm actually getting someplace with it though, which is good--and I've still go plenty of time. I'm going to send my draft to the professor as soon as I'm done....it's going to kill me to do this, because I hate to let anyone see half-done, shoddy work....but it's a concession I have to make. I need help, and if the cost of a little guidance is my professor thinking that I'm stupid, so be it. I just hope he forgets how badly this is written before I start work on his classwork for next semester (ay de mi, a 400 with this man will be crazy...). Anyway, so I'm going to give him a draft, and I'm going to go talk to another person in the class. I don't know if she's anymore with it than I am, since I have the sneaking suspicion I read a lot more of the book than her, but maybe we can help each other somewhat

Changing venue has also been helpful. Since lunch today, I've been working in the writing center, and I think I've got more focus in here...well, at least until a few minutes ago. Someone else came in here to study, and she's making an inexcusable amount of noise. Her discman is turned up far too loudly, she's eating a bag of chips, she talks to herself every few minutes, and--this one I don't understand at all--she keeps snapping. One or two snaps every five minutes or so. It'd driving me crazy, so I'm going to relocate to a different lab and try to wrap this up.

It smells like piss in here

2003-04-18 / 12:57 a.m.

After hearing several recommendations, I've procured some music by Jump Little Children, and I'm glad I did so. They're one of those bands that I've heard here and there, but never really put a name with the songs. They're really super so far though, having only listened to about 9 of their songs...

I'm in the attic in our building, and it smells smells strange....not so much attic like....more like some kind of animal excretion :( Michelle has instituted a new policy of asking me to leave the room if I'm going to be using my computer after 1:00 am if she's she's trying to sleep. If I weren't so lazy, I'd go to the lab in the writing center (my new place of employment!! yay yay yay yay!) which sucks far less than most other all-night labs, but I didn't feel like putting shoes on tonight, and I'm using the attic lab. I should be in bed now, but the caffiene I consumed earlier has given me focus and made sleeping a lower priority. I'm going to take advantage of alertness to try to write a little more of this awful paper. My goal is to finish it and mail the professor a draft of something tomorrow. I need some input on this.

BTW

2003-04-17 / 12:40 a.m.

I realize there are a lot of entries on one page...I just now realized that I should probably start the page over at a regular interval. How about a new page on Sunday or Monday? Sound good? It doesn't matter: it's my page, it sounds good to me, so it's policy.

Rambling.

2003-04-17 / 12:27 a.m.

I could die any minute. I could be living my last moments on earth right now...and I ask myself, "how well-ordered are my priorities?" --the answer worries me. I guess the bottom line is what it's been for many years...I'm very very afraid of dying, but even more fearful of dying without having lived a long, interesting, varied, and happy life. You�d think that with this level of awareness, I�d be living less cautiously and more in the "carpe diem" spirit. Ay me. I'm working on it, I'm working on it.

quick, pre-sociology update

2003-04-16 / 9:10 a.m.

My "rights" paper causes me fear and woe. I keep sitting down trying to get my thoughts collected to outline, but I'm getting nowhere. I found myself starting at a blank page last night, asking myself if I absorbed anything I read...because I have no idea what to write about law and social change. Wow. Crap.

Room selection was last night. We didn't get either of our first choices, so we're just in some average room on the second floor of the same building we live in now. It's a nice enough room, just exactly like where we live now (without stains on the ceiling, and with larger windowsills). We just barely lost the split double :( I was so psyched about that too. The plan as it is now is that Michelle will waitlist for a single, and if she gets one, I'll move in with Rachel--who doesn't have a roommate.

You give me that funny feeling in my tummy

2003-04-15 / 12:43 a.m.

I've got a funny feeling in my stomach. I feel...It's almost like I'm nervous about something imminent. That's bizarre. I can't imagine what I could be dreading or worrying about in the near future... tomorrow I'm going to wake up, eat breakfast, go to astronomy, work out, shower, go to US-Latin American, go to work, study....that's about my whole day in a nutshell, and I see nothing to be frightened of. Granted, working out blows, and US-Latin is always a little intimidating--but I do these things several times a week, and I usually don't fear them. If I were a superstitious woman, I'd think this was some sort of indication of an important happening tomorrow--but being my pragmatic self, I think I just ate too close to bedtime or I'm dehydrated or something. :)

I feel like I need a change of some sort. I was looking to find it in the haircut, but was left unfulfilled (stupid unruly curly hair). While routines are okay, I feel like I'm stuck in a rut that goes beyond having a pretty set schedule in the day to day. I have no idea how to remedy this. Ah well.

so, more or less, things have been good lately. ::sigh:: Stress abounding, but good all the same

Fear of aging.

2003-04-14 / 12:10 a.m.

Fear of aging

Gerascophobia- Fear of growing old.
--from phobialist.com

Justify slacking

2003-04-13 / 11:47 p.m.

I wrote a whole entry. Than I accedentally closed the window. I'm stupid

I have no motivation to do homework. I had so much focus earlier, and...uhh...I lost it. This is why I'm writing instead of working. Of course, there are worse times to be procrastinating...in all fairness, I am prepared for tomorrow, so my slackness tonight won't be disasterous. Also, because of the nature of the work I have to be doing, I can't really do it unless I'm putting my full effort into it. There are some kinds of school work that you can just do, but for things that require more effort and concentration, if I'm not in the mood, I can't get them done well. Paper prep, brainstorming, and thinking about litigation's role in pay equity reform are just not things I can get by doing half assed.

I was channeling my 6 year-old self this morning when I did my hair. :) For all the dissatisfaction I express about people thinking I'm younger than I am, I believe that style choices such as this one ensure that I will never look my age :)

Age, age, age. Is there a name for a fear of aging? Google has failed to show me a clinical phobia, but I bet there is one...but anyway. Yes, I think I'm really afraid of aging, and being around the elderly sometimes makes me uncomfortable and depressed--does that make me a horrible person? Perhaps this is just a lack of experience being around really old people. My grandfather--who I loved dearly--died when I was pretty young, and I wasn't around him much when he got old old. Same story with my Grandma. I've just never spent much time with anyone as their health and body deteriorated. There were many elderly folk at the lecture last Friday, and I guess it just struck me then how terrified I am of getting old. Oh yeah, and I must add...Personal to Brian: this is not why I dislike "The Golden Girls"--it's just a crumby show.

Lucky

2003-04-13 / 2:55 p.m.

What kind of lucky people are we to be alive on such a beautiful day? Seriously. Being outside makes my heart want to explode. Girls (many of them accompanied by boyfriends) are littering the quad once again, sunning themselves to a nice golden brown while studying. I wish I had time to join them today, but alas...I have a group meeting with my astronomy partner. Perhaps tomorrow afternoon.

Relax.

2003-04-13 / 1:20 a.m.

Friday. Fri-day. Fry-day. Friday. Friday was another day spent running around doing "stuff", yet feeling like I didn't get anything accomplished. Somehow, despite this negitive aspect, I had a good day. Especially compared to Thursday. Thursday sucked, didn't it? What's with the weather?

Brian came down Friday night, and accompanied me and Michelle to see a fantastic lecture by Brother Guy Consolmagno, who is a Jesuit brother, astronomer at the Vatican observatory, writer, MIT grad, and all around interesting guy. The lecture was called "Astronomy, God and the Search for Elegance" and I enjoyed it. The lecture stretched out to a lot of topics, and certainly gave the audience some things to think about in reguards to their own understanding of the universe.

What else? Went to Java Monkey afterwards, and was greatly assured about Brian's talk to Argentina. Left Brian use of my bedding facilities at about 1:30 and went home for the night.

Today (Saturday) rocked. Saturday I relaxed with gusto. I realized while talking to Will in the evening that (much to his horror), I didn't even check the news. My brain was in happy-forget-about-problems-obligations-and-responsibilities-mode. Spent most of the day just hanging out with Hillary, and it was super. I went to get my haircut, which was generally a dissapointing experience. I was looking for something new and different, by my stylist assured me that keeping it the same relative length and shape is really the best idea. It's the poor luck of having large curly hair--there's not much you can do with it. I was also unable to adequately enjoy my shampoo/deep conditiong because midway through my hair prep, my shampoo boy (who was cute) was switched to a shampoo girl...a girl I knew in high school...a girl I don't even think liked me very much. It was kind of weird, and her scalp massage skills were sub-par :p At least the split ends are taken care of, and it looks pretty good. I came back to school pretty early and got some work done, but also go to spend some time just collecting myself. Very nice.

Sleep perchance to dream

2003-04-10 / 5:17 p.m.

It's been a really rough day. It's been one of those days where I've been running around and doing things for many hours, yet I feel like I havn't gotten much of anything accomplished. It's also one of those days when I look and feel gross and ugly and fat. Sometimes, I think I just need to make the time to get up and shower, put myself together...I'll feel better later if I do....but I couldn't resist the pull of my bed this morning.

I think I hit the alarm clock snooze button a record number of times this morning (Sorry, Michelle). I was having the most wonderful dream! I was sitting in a field looking at stars, and it was very warm and pretty and dark--very low light pollution. So I could see all kinds of stars and planets better than I could with my naked eye...I could see the rings of Saturn, the clouds around venus, details of the surface of Jupiter...It looked like photos taken from a satellite. (incedentally, this is very inaccurate...Venus and Saturn are not up at the same time in the night sky now). There was someone else there with me, but I don't remember who. I think it was someone male, but that part escapes me. I was also eating really tasty chocolates...the dream was so vivid I could smell and taste and feel the texture of them, and it was sooo good. I've been jonesing for good, dark chocolate truffles or butter creams all day. mmmmmmmmmmmmmm

Unfortuantely, reality was no match for this. It's cold, rainy, ugly, and I'm stressed out. I feel the shift from energized-stressed to just worried-burned out-stressed looming over me. I'm trying to be upbeat though

Went to the post office this morning, and it took way way way longer than it should have. Added bonus: the postal workers seemed disgrunteled + today, and after waiting in line for what seemed to be an eternity, I looked toward the counter to see that all three postal employees had erected their "next station please" signs. The man that eventually helped me with mailing my package (the unlucky college ring) had an absurdly bad toupee. I couldn't help but laugh. This may have been the high point of my day even :p

Well, here I am, at work...and now I'm going to begin reading my "Rights" book. I'm finally almost done. If I can just write a good paper, I can put this text behind me once and for all, because I'm pretty sure it won't have anything to do with the final paper. Deep breath.